Security racks for safely preventing theft of clothing are known in the art. The typical way of securing an article of clothing is by using a hanger which is secured at one end to a lock and is free standing. The hanger is removed from its base and threaded through one sleeve of an article of clothing. The shoulder area of the hanger contains a flared projection so that the sleeve cannot be slipped over this wide projection. The other end, the supporting means of the hanger, is secured by a lock so that the hanger itself cannot be removed.
Other security devices include chains or flexible steel cables which can be attached at both ends to a locked base. One end is attached to the base and then it is threaded through a sleeve or other part of the article of clothing. The other end is also attached to the base. The disadvantages in this prior art is that the flexible steel cable does not act as a hanger support for the article of clothing. Accordingly, in addition to the securing cable, one must have a hanger for supporting the article of clothing. The cable must be passed through a sleeve in order to secure it, and whenever the article of clothing is temporarily removed, the cable must be re-threaded to re-secure the article of clothing. This is time consuming.
In the pre-standing rigid hangers, the lock means is only at one end of the hanger and the base of the hanger could be cut or pulled out thereby allowing the sleeve of the garment to be slipped off the hanger. With the increasing reliance of selfservice retailing establishments with a minimum of sales clerks, it became apparent to retailers that anti-theft devices must be attached to their expensive items in order to prevent the shoplifting of them. Shoplifting has become an increasingly expensive overhead which many retailers are unable to or no longer able to tolerate. Therefore the need was apparent that there should be a security garment rack which is theft proof, easy to manufacture, easy to operate and to visually deter any shoplifters from even attempting to vandalize the machine or the rack and shoplifting the article of clothing, or disabling the clothing rack.